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Political Ideology

09-18-2015, 05:38 AM

Several discussions on the forum lately have become involved in political discussions as opposed to the actual topic at hand; I do not wish to have those political discussions here, but rather, clear up some of the confusion of ideas that has been expressed concerning political ideologies, the most notable of which has been the conflation of "fascism" or "nazism" with "socialism" or "communism."

I understand the desire to conflate them, and I even understand that, on some levels, there is a degree of similarity, but in the most important ways, they are completely different. To explain why, first I need to find a better way of expressing political ideology.

Here is a site where, after taking a brief questionnaire, you can find an objective measure of your own ideology. Just for funsies, if everyone will post their results, I'll make a chart with all of our names on it so we can compare.

Here are a few charts of famous people:

And here's me:

As you can see, I'm pretty far off the trend as far as our current political parties are concerned.

Now, this chart is divided along two axes: Roughly, social and economic.

The vertical axis is social; how much do you think the government should intrude into individuals' personal lives.

The horizontal axis is economic; how much do you think the government should intrude into commerce.

It is not perfect, however; there are, obviously, more than two measures of political ideology, and so the distinction between fascism and socialism is not made explicitly clear.

Simply put, while fascism believes in government intrusion into commerce, it does so for the benefit of the owners of the means of production, as opposed to for the benefit of society as a whole. Socialism believes in government intrusion into commerce, but for the benefit of society as a whole rather than just for the owners of the means of production. Communism, in the Soviet or Chinese sense, blurred the lines between these distinctions, primarily by replacing one group of elites with another, although the situation is complicated by the state of their societies when these systems were implemented.

Comment

Let's be clear here, libertarian != liberal, in fact the term libertarian was invented precisely to set apart those people who were for civil liberties but were against socialist ideas, some of the more known libertarians are Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park, while liberal left is main driver behind PC culture libertarians spit in the face of said culture and propagate complete freedom of speech, while liberals want government to become more involved into daily affairs libertarians argue for reducing government to lowest level possible etc, they are not the same thing at all.

I sexually identify as a sword pommel, check your privilege or i will have to end you RIGHTLY.

Comment

Let's be clear here, libertarian != liberal, in fact the term libertarian was invented precisely to set apart those people who were for civil liberties but were against socialist ideas, some of the more known libertarians are Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park, while liberal left is main driver behind PC culture libertarians spit in the face of said culture and propagate complete freedom of speech, while liberals want government to become more involved into daily affairs libertarians argue for reducing government to lowest level possible etc, they are not the same thing at all.

exactly. The problem with the model is it does not include a necessary Z axis. It attempts to flatten liberitarianism with anarchism. Liberitarians are constitutionally motivated which is nowhere near anarchy.

If one would add a z axis where liberitarianism wuold be included where constitution would be positive and collectivism would be on the negative, my political view would be much higher on the positive z axis, whereas SST would be much on the negetive axis.

Things like issues of forced giving to the needy and poor would be shifted to the z axis and give a completely different view of the place one would find themselves.

Comment

Hmmm…the questions themselves are not so much a problem, as are the answers. If ‘strongly agree/disagree’ are options, then there should be an option for ‘somewhat agree/disagree.’ Otherwise, just keep it at agree/disagree/unsure.

I also don't like how the abortion topic has become a political issue. Ugh.

Comment

Even though the test is severely flawed in its entire premise. I took it and as Just as I expected. It has nothing to do with reality.

Liberitarianism is no where near anarchy. The whole left/right dynamic are not opposed to each other. They are two sides of the same coin.

Also, the questions are very loaded. And many of them cannot be answered in the simple terms given.

Your Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: 2.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.1

Ironically, it put you almost exactly where I would have expected: Slightly right-wing and moderate on the libertarian/authoritarian axis. Perhaps you are the one misunderstanding "reality?"

Yes, Libertarianism is close to anarchy: Libertarianism is the least amount of government possible to still have a functioning society; anarchy is no government at all. That's "close."

Left/right ARE opposed; that's sort of the whole point. Two sides of a coin ARE opposed, but then, basic concepts like this seem to elude you.

And of course many of the questions will be difficult to answer; there is no possible way to make a test that you can take in less than, say, an hour, that will not be simplistic to one degree or another. That's why there were 4 answers to each question and not 2.

Comment

Let's be clear here, libertarian != liberal, in fact the term libertarian was invented precisely to set apart those people who were for civil liberties but were against socialist ideas, some of the more known libertarians are Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park, while liberal left is main driver behind PC culture libertarians spit in the face of said culture and propagate complete freedom of speech, while liberals want government to become more involved into daily affairs libertarians argue for reducing government to lowest level possible etc, they are not the same thing at all.